Call me Lucinda outside Louisville.I remember well my early undergrad days being a bit foggy with pot. I was never a huge user, but the freedom of living away from home was too much for me and I indulged.
And I missed a lot of class and flunked a couple before I got it all straightened out. But I never went to class stoned. I didn't see the point in that.
But I see more and more students who seem impaired - in class. I don't even know if kids this age smoke pot anymore, or if it's pills they like. Good grief, I suddenly feel very very old.
Q: Has there been a recent uptick in student drug use, and do any of you see more of them coming to class stoned?
Most definitely. I have more and more gigglers. I'm guessing pot, but like Lucinda I just don't know. We had "huffers" in my high school who acted like this, paint sniffers, aerosol, whatever. But I don't know enough to know.
ReplyDeleteI've sent one kid home this semester so far, who was just happily disoriented. His buddy was in the hallway and offered to escort him back to the dorms. I was awfully uncomfortable and worried that I wasn't doing the responsible thing.
Ours is a big drinking school, although of course there are always stoners around.
ReplyDeleteBut I sometimes get young men in my morning class who are still drunk from the night before. The beer smell reeks off their clothes. And we have about 30% commuter students, so I don't send them packing. I figure if they're in class they might sober up some before heading out again.
I teach in the PNW and there is a LOT of weed up here, so I do have a pretty large contingent of smokers.
ReplyDeleteAnd I find when they overindulge they don't bother with class. I do got long and rambling emails asking for notes or retakes, but I can't recall a time when I had a student actually impaired noticeably in class.
no. but I teach at a more conservative campus. never even seen a beer can in the bushes
ReplyDeleteLast week I had one guy who could not stop giggling and another show up in shorts and a housecoat. They're both A students. So, like, dudes, keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteI'm probably utterly oblivious to it in my classes, but I have noticed more and more excuses that amount to: "I have to go to court and will miss the exam, can I make it up?"
ReplyDeleteI smell a lot of weed while walking around campus, and when I scope the area I'll see the person with the little joint tucked into their hand so I know it is not just my imagination. It is the middle of the day, and they look like they're going to go to class. Which is when I think to myself, whadafuk? We're a commuter school, located in a vast outer landscape of commercial real estate, so one had to go through the trouble of getting to campus rather than just stumbling over from across the street. Why go through the bother if you're just going to be stoned during class?
ReplyDeletemaybe they live with their parents. My first year of grad school I commuted from home and my girlfriend lived with her parents, so there was no dorm or frat house room for privacy,. But, there were nice woods near campus. 8-)
DeleteWell, the woods are where all the couples go to make out (and possibly do more...). These hosers are smoking up along high traffic thoroughfares between the main buildings where most lecture halls are concentrated. But yes, regardless whether they're screwing or toking, campus is the place to get away from the parents.
DeleteI don't see it so much at the university, but back in my adjunct days I was a substitute teacher for the local public schools to make ends meet. I did a long term gig in one of the more affluent high schools in the area once, for almost an entire school year. That particular school had an open campus policy for juniors and seniors, and those were the students I taught. So I regularly had students show up to my afternoon class, just after lunch, stoned out of their minds. This happened at least 2-3 times a week for the entire time I was there.
ReplyDeleteI knew someone who used to light up every morning in the parking lot on his way to his first class. He would do it again at noon, between classes. He never finished his degree. But this was in the 80s.
ReplyDelete.....And his name was "The Dude", right?
DeleteHis name was Spicoli...
DeleteSince I'm at Christian SLAC now, anyone caught using illegal drugs is immediately expelled, so they instead pass the Ativan and Adderall around. And there are way more of them than I ever remember being "medicated" before, but that's understandable given that we have more diagnoses of these.
ReplyDeleteI've had students show up drunk to class thinking we couldn't smell the reek from 80 feet away. I don't know why they bother.
I teach at a suburban high school connected to a large urban area. We have kids who smoke pot ON CAMPUS in the bathrooms. Usually skipping class to do so. Sometimes they come to class, sometimes they just wander around campus. When they do come to class, they're at least laid back, even if I do have to help them a million times with how to do the assignment...
ReplyDeleteI'm at a very weed-heavy place. I smell it the most at football games where it's almost as strong as the smell of nachos.
ReplyDeleteI'm never sure if my students are stoned or not. Some may as well be though, for all of the time and $$ they're wasting.
ReplyDeletePfffffftt! What'd ya say? Sorry, I spaced there. Want another hit, Bubba? Whhhhhh... (Cough!)
ReplyDeleteFrankly, my students are so dull-witted, it's hard to tell whether they're stoned or not.